Albany crews prepare for emergencies before they happen

Albany - - HAZMAT technicians go through special training every year to deal with accidents like this Thursday's chemical spill.

Thursday, they put that knowledge to use. Technicians say they receive quarterly training and they try to get everyone in the Albany Fire Department prepared for this type of emergency.

"It just allows you to go back to stored knowledge you have in your mind and replay scenarios that you went over at the station. We go over scenarios all the time so we can prepare ourselves for arriving on the scene. This is not something that we haven't seen before and its certainly something that most of us have discussed at one point or another. Farm chemicals, chlorine leaks, we go over it all," says Lt. Bobby Spargo.

There are more than 100 trained technicians with Albany's HAZMAT team. About 25 of them responded to Thursday's spill.